Dr Narzanin Massoumi

I am a Senior Lecturer in Criminology whose research focuses on political repression, state and corporate power, and the governance of dissent in liberal democracies.

My work examines how states and other powerful institutions seek to regulate, constrain and suppress political participation and social movements. I am particularly interested in forms of repression that extend beyond direct police coercion or criminal punishment, including counter-terrorism and counter-extremism policies, surveillance, administrative regulation, civil law and injunctions, institutional disciplinary processes, stigmatisation and delegitimation. A central concern of my research is the role of non-state actors in political repression, and the ways in which state institutions, civil-society organisations and private or corporate actors interact in the regulation and suppression of dissent.

Much of my empirical research has examined the relationship between political repression, racism and counter-terrorism, particularly through the UK Prevent programme and the regulation of Muslim political and civil-society participation. My work has explored the role of universities, think tanks, civil-society organisations and other non-state actors in extending systems of political control, as well as the implications of these processes for civil liberties, freedom of expression and academic freedom.

More recently, my research has expanded to examine the repression of protest and dissent, including the policing and criminalisation of protest, restrictions on freedom of assembly and expression, and the growing use of legal, administrative and institutional mechanisms to constrain activism. I am particularly interested in developing a broader theoretical account of repression capable of explaining how coercive and non-coercive forms of political control operate together within liberal democracies.

My wider research interests include racism and anti-racism, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism, social movements, human rights and civil liberties, counter-terrorism, and state and corporate power.

Alongside my academic research, I have undertaken applied research for human-rights organisations, including Amnesty International UK, examining restrictions on protest, freedom of expression, counter-terrorism and civil liberties.